Slot Machines for Bars in Near North Side, Chicago

History

Jean Baptiste DuSable settled here in the mid-1780s on a farm north of the river, sold it in 1800, and John Kinzie later lived there. In the 1830s New Yorker William B. Ogden found the swampy land his family had bought, bought up large tracts anyway, had a canal dug that made Goose Island, and in 1848 brought in the city's first railroad. Irish factory workers settled at the river fork and the McCormicks built homes near their Reaper Works.

The Fire of 1871 destroyed most of what stood here; the Water Tower and the Chicago Avenue Pumping Station were the only public buildings to survive. The rich took the lakefront: the Palmers built along the future Lake Shore Drive, and George Streeter claimed the sand around his beached boat until the court ruled against him in 1918. The west side became Little Hell, razed in World War II for the Frances Cabrini Homes and then the Cabrini-Green high-rises. The Michigan Avenue Bridge opened in 1920 and made North Michigan Avenue a luxury shopping street; galleries filled River North in the 1980s; and Cabrini-Green came down from 2000 to 2011.

The area today

The Red Line runs around the clock and stops at Grand, Chicago and Clark/Division; the Brown Line stops at Sedgwick, Chicago and Merchandise Mart on its way into the Loop. The names people use: River North; the Michigan Avenue shopping stretch around the Water Tower; Streeterville's towers on Streeter's old sandbar; the Gold Coast, the lakefront address of the city's wealthiest; Astor Street's landmark houses among high-rises mostly built 1960 to 1980; and Old Town's Wells Street. Navy Pier runs 3,000 feet into the lake. Washington Square Park, about three acres given to the city in 1842 across from the Newberry Library, was nicknamed Bughouse Square when the mansions around it became flophouses and soapbox orators filled it. In February 2025 a City Council committee advanced mixed-income apartments on an Oak Street lot near the old Cabrini-Green site, one the 27th Ward alderman said had sat vacant more than 50 years.

Bars and restaurants here

River North has seen well-known rooms close. On Hubbard Street, a restaurant announced in 2024 it would shut to make way for two new concepts. On West Illinois Street, a basement club that became a celebrity magnet after opening in 2007 closed as a nightclub in 2024, and a former staffer said the culture has changed with so many cocktail lounges. On Rush Street in the Gold Coast, a steakhouse that closed in 2022 after 25 years announced a 2024 reopening in a hotel across the street. On Division Street one Irish saloon, open since 1961, remains a go-to for young bar-hoppers and college crowds. In 2023 the City Council froze new liquor licenses on Old Town's Wells Street from Schiller Street to North Avenue and barred new late-hour licenses across the 2nd Ward, grandfathering current holders.